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Publications [#211902] of Kevin D. Hoover

Duke :: Philosophy :: Faculty :: Kevin D. Hoover

Chapters in Books

  1. K.D. Hoover, "Identity, Structure, and Causal Representation in Scientific Models", in Towards the Methodological Turn in the Philosophy of Science: Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics., edited by Hsiang-Ke Chao, Szu-Ting Chen, and Roberta Millstein (2012), Springer.
    (last updated on 2012/12/04)

    Abstract:
    Recent debates over the nature causation, casual inference, and the uses of causal models in counterfactual analysis, involving inter alia Nancy Cartwright (Hunting Causes and Using Them), James Woodward (Making Things Happen) and Judea Pearl (Causation) hinge on how causality is represented in models. Economists’ indigenous approach to causal representation goes back to the work of Herbert Simon with the Cowles Commission in the early 1950s. The paper explicates a scheme for the representation of causal structure, inspired by Simon and shows how this representation sheds light on some important debates in the philosophy of causation. This structural account is compared to Woodward’s manipulability account. It is used to evaluate the recent debates – particularly, with respect to the nature of causal structure, the identity of causes, causal independence, and modularity. Special attention is given to modeling issues that arise in empirical economics.


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